According to the official Stanislaw Lem web site, there is a new, better translation into English of his masterpiece Solaris. The original Polish version of the book was translated into French by one team, and the French version was later translated into English. With the double translation came lots of errors, and Lem spoke out against that version, since he also spoke English and could see for himself just how poor a job it was. Unfortunately, both of the English language movies made from it were based on that bad translation. The actual physical print version of the new translation is currently tied up in a copyright dispute, but it will be out as an audiobook and an e-book later this year.
Hell Girl has been streaming for a while, but now Anime Network has added Maria Holic to the online streaming collection. The Anime Network YouTube site starts out with a very nice Angel Beats trailer, which should be online sometime soon (actually already online if you get your feed from the Anime Network paid service). All of which means you have a good site to watch some quality Anime from, whenever you are so inclined. Enjoy!
It looks like the official props crew of the BBC, and the BBC itself, have now licensed for sale Official Daleks. They are full sized replicas built from the same moulds and specifications used to create the ones you see on TV, and if they seem a bit pricey at £3,000 (just under $5,000), remember that each one is hand-built to order. Being the same as the TV versions, you can not ride around in them like cars, but you can wear them like costumes if you crouch down and manipulate the transport directly (foot powered). Thanks to the folks at io9 for the heads up on this one.
Sometimes silly commercials are actually fun. While these may not be sci-fi, they are silly, and that counts for a lot with me. Plus, commercials invoke a discipline most audio/video creators never have to work within: tell your entire story and get your message across in 15 seconds to 3 minutes. If that sounds easy, give it a shot, and see just how it works out for you. I was surprised at the results I got the first few times, but as I worked at condensing the plot and action, I got better at it, and the stories themselves had a lot more punch in a lot less screen time.
I don’t see any movies this week in wide release I am excited about, but I have to mention Cars 2 simply because Pixar always does an amazing job with their animation. However, if you are in Seattle, the new Philip K. Dick movie Radio Free Albemuth will be having its theatrical world premiere at the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, kicking off their annual awards presentation. Wish I was on that coast.
The top movie this week is The Adjustment Bureau, yet another Philip K. Dick story given the big screen treatment. I thought the early 1960s stylization of the sets and costumes was a good choice, since that matched up with the era it was written in. Another good one is The Eagle, the dramatization of what might have happened to the Ninth Legion in 120 AD. To counterbalance those, we have Van Von Hunter, a silly live action movie based on an American comic but filmed by Tokyo Pop (you may have recently seen their movie Priest), a now defunct American production and distribution company for predominately Japanese properties. The other counterbalance is Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, just to prove silly movies still sell. I have never been able to figure out why these kind of movies made in the US are so offensive to me, and yet I love Gojira and the like from Japan. Actually the US release of Godzilla with Jean and Mathew was a favorite as well; maybe it’s the monsters.
For TV, Medium: The Final Season becomes available, as well as the full series in a single box set. While I am aware this series was based on someone’s real life, to me it will always be Fantasy.
New Anime this week starts with Bleach Uncut Box Set 9, another handful of episodes in this long running series about the world of the Soul Reapers. When I say a handful, I mean just that; episodes 146 through 156 are included here, only 11 of them. At this rate, it will be a while before we catch up with the current production run, which is somewhere around episode 275. The Kanokon OVA Collection is all about summer break and how the relationships evolve as the Fox Goddess and Wolf Goddess continue to vie for the heart of the human Kouta.
While not actually Sci-Fi or Fantasy, You’re Under Arrest is one of my favorite Anime series, and the Complete Full Throttle set is also the complete season 3. It has been a while since the last season, and this one starts off with one partner having returned from forensics training in the US, while the other one just finished JSDF (Japanese Self-Defense Force) Ranger training, which is as close to Green Beret as makes no difference. If you thought these two were dangerous to everyone anywhere near them before (criminal or not), wait till you see them now! And Kekkaishi – Part 1 has two childhood friends battling it out to see who gets to be the destroyer of monsters using barrier magic. While both are doing their best to protect their people, they are not the same gender, so some romantic tension gets added to the story.
Finally, this weeks classic series re-release is Blue Gender, where our protagonist wakes up from a few decades of suspended animation to discover that instead of the cure for his terminal disease that he was expecting, humans are being hunted as food by giant insects. As usual with such releases, you can pick up this quality series for dirt cheap if you shop around, $20 being the est price I found.